


and leave you to mend the fence

by therealw



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, M/M, Mark being an asshole, Miscommunication, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, POV Outsider, Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 20:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6023247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealw/pseuds/therealw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dustin should get new friends, really. </p><p>"On the other side of the door stands a girl wearing a bright red beret. “Hi! I’m Erica, Mark’s girlfriend?” Dustin instinctively turns to look at Eduardo and sees that so has Chris."</p>
            </blockquote>





	and leave you to mend the fence

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Friends' by Travis.

It starts with a knock on the door.

Dustin sighs and clicks _save_ as he drags himself up. Mark's in class, Chris is a lazy bastard and Eduardo, who’s sitting Indian style on the couch with his Macroeconomics book open on his lap, is way too polite to open the door of someone else’s room without being asked first.

On the other side of the door stands a girl wearing a bright red beret. She’s quite pretty in a non-threatening, girl-next-door kind of way.

“Hello?” Damn, why did he have to make it sound like a question?

“Hi! I’m Erica, Mark’s girlfriend?” She hesitates a little at the word but raises her chin at the same time, as if she wasn't used to calling herself that but knowing that she can.

Dustin instinctively turns to look at Eduardo and sees that so has Chris. He clears his throat. “So. What can I do for you…” Dustin starts to ask, suddenly thankful for his mother’s constant nagging about manners, “… Erica?” he finishes and attempts a cautious smile. He probably just looks demented.

“Oh, I just came to drop this off,” she answers and hands him a familiar-looking cell phone. “It’s Mark’s,” she explains unnecessarily. “He left it in my room last night. I’m driving home for the weekend, and I figured he’d need it, but I’ve no idea where his class is, so…”

Dustin stares at the cell in his hand. He feels like he’s landed in a parallel universe. He steals a quick glance at Chris, but he thankfully doesn’t seem to have grown a goatee in the last five seconds.

“I’ll… make sure he gets it,” he tells her, a little too cheerfully.

“Great! Nice meeting you!” And with that, she’s spinning on her heel and trotting down the Kirkland stairs.

Dustin shuts the door and stands there staring at it for a second, wondering what the hell just happened. The door’s not providing any answers, so he goes back to his homework.

A new IM message is waiting for him.

_**hugehughes83:** DO NOT GET INVOLVED!!!!_

He looks up at Chris. He seems oh so engrossed in his problem set. A little too engrossed, considering Dustin knows for a fact that he routinely does three other guys’ Probability and Statistics homework in exchange for beer while he watches American Idol.

_**moskowitzard:** wasn’t planning on it._

Eduardo hasn’t turned the page since the knock on the door. Regardless of how tiny the print of his Mankiw's may be, there’s no way he’s actually been stuck on the same page for the past five minutes. Dustin clicks on his IM window.

_**moskowitzard:** it’s kind of sad, though _  
_**hugehughes83:** I’m NOT taking sides_  
_**moskowitzard:** sides? _  
_**hugehughes83:** you know what I mean_  
_**moskowitzard:** did Mark tell you about her?_  
_**hugehughes83:** nope_  
_**moskowitzard:** me neither_  
_**hugehughes83:** yeah, I gathered from your killer gaping goldfish impression_  
_**moskowitzard:** haha. real funny_  
_**moskowitzard:** should we do something?_  
_**hugehughes83:** like what? rent Bridget Jones and watch it with him and a giant tube of chocolate chocolate chip?_  
_**moskowitzard:** you’re a riot today, man. I mean it._  
_**moskowitzard:** why do you think Mark didn’t tell him?_  
_**hugehughes83:** are you seriously asking me?_  


Yes, it was a stupid question. But this is the first time ever that he and Chris have openly discussed whatever is or isn’t going on between their friends. 

Until now they’ve operated under an unspoken agreement to make as much noise as possible when walking into the room and always keep their eyes fixed on the floor stepping in, just in case. They’ve both become quite good at pretending not to see certain things – ignoring the telling looks over breakfast and designer shirts in Mark’s laundry hamper is surprisingly easy once you get used to it.

_**moskowitzard:** this is like ignoring an abandoned puppy, man_  
_**moskowitzard:** I’m starting to feel depressed just from watching him mope_  
_**hugehughes83:** we’ve been through this_  
_**hugehughes83:** DO. NOT. GET. INVOLVED._

Suddenly, Eduardo’s on his feet and striding towards Mark’s desk. Dustin wonders if he’s going to smash Mark’s laptop to pieces and preemptively decides there’s no way he’ll be the one to explain what happened to Mark. Eduardo doesn’t, thankfully. He just picks up his Mathematical Finance book. And a red binder. And a few pens. And a striped scarf from the pile of clothes next to Mark’s bed. Calmly, a little too calmly, Eduardo stuffs everything into his backpack, zipping it up once he’s done. He then sits back down on the couch, ramrod straight and perfectly still, staring at the backpack on the floor as if he’d never seen it before.

“Did you guys know?”

Dustin considers pretending he doesn’t know what Eduardo’s talking about for a long moment, but before he can make up his mind, Chris says, “No. He’s never mentioned her, actually.” Dustin’s confused. _That_ ’s what he calls ‘not getting involved’?

“Me neither,” Dustin chimes in. Eduardo is not really looking at him, but he feels as if he should say something anyway.

Before anyone can add anything else, the door bursts open and Mark walks in. ‘Oh, _shit_ ,’ Dustin thinks. He hurriedly spins his chair around to face his laptop.

_**hugehughes83:** OH SHIT_  
_**moskowitzard:** MTE_

Mark grunts a wordless greeting. Dustin waves over his shoulder.

“Erica was here,” Eduardo blurts out, and Dustin turns around again (car crashes and all that) just in time to see Mark freeze halfway to his room. “She brought your phone.”

Dustin had always thought the phrase ‘cutting the tension in the air with a knife’ was both cliché and just plain stupid. He might have to reconsider.

“So. How long have you guys been dating?” Eduardo finally asks. His voice is impressively level, considering. Dustin really doesn’t want to be here for this. 

And it’s painfully obvious that neither does Mark - he’s looking anywhere but at Eduardo, hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie.

Silence.

“How long?” Eduardo insists.

“Three weeks, give or take?”

“Were you planning on telling us?”

Dustin’s not sure why he’s using the plural.

“It’s nothing serious.”

“She introduced herself as your girlfriend, Mark.”

Mark shrugs in that way he has that could mean anything from ‘sure, let’s have Chinese for dinner’ to ‘a five year old could write better code than this’.

“Well, she has a very nice face.” Dustin wonders where Eduardo thinks he’s going with this.

“She goes to BU,” Mark says, as if that was an answer.

Eduardo gets up from the couch and heads for the door, grabbing his backpack and his book on the way. “I’m late for class.”

Any normal human being would be able to tell that’s a blatant lie just from the look on Eduardo’s face. Mark should be able to tell that’s a blatant lie because he always uses their schedules when doing routine CourseMatch maintenance.

“Okay,” Mark says. He’s obviously relieved that Eduardo’s not pressing the issue.

Just as the door is sliding shut, Dustin’s IM pings with a new message.

 

_**hugehughes83:** well. that went better than expected_  
_**moskowitzard:** are you disappointed there wasn’t any blood?_  
_**hugehughes83:** wouldn’t *that* have been fun to explain to the dean?_  
_**hugehughes83:** I think we should take Eduardo drinking tonight_  
_**moskowitzard:** what happened to OMG NOT GETTING INVOLVED?!!_  
_**hugehughes83:** there’s a difference between not getting involved and being a shitty friend_  
_**moskowitzard:** good point_  
_**moskowitzard:** how do we stop Mark from joining us?_  
_**hugehughes83:** er, tell him Wardo’s coming?_  
_**hugehughes83:** DUH_  
_**moskowitzard:** he’ll think we’re taking Wardo’s side_  
_**hugehughes83:** NO HE WON'T_  
_**hugehughes83:** we don’t know ANYTHING, remember?_  
_**moskowitzard:** when did you get so sneaky?_  
_**hugehughes83:** finish your fucking homework, Moskovitz _

 

:::

 

Eduardo’s leaning against the wall of the bar as if it was the only thing preventing him from keeling over. It probably is, too.

“You must think I’m pathetic.” His words aren’t nearly as slurred as they should be after the truly alarming amount of booze he’s consumed tonight.

“C’mon, Wardo, don’t—” Dustin says and reaches for his shoulder.

Eduardo bats his hand away, laughing bitterly. It’s a strangely upsetting sound. “I don’t mind. I know I am.”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic, man.” They'd all dropped the ignorance act around the fifth round of shots or so. “Just… you made things very difficult for yourself when you…” Dustin trails off because he doesn’t really know how to finish. _When you started screwing around with Mark?_ No fucking way he’s saying that. _When you decided it was a good idea to fall for the most emotionally unavailable guy on campus?_ Hell no, he’s not a friggin’ girl. 

He finally settles on, “You’re a really smart guy, Wardo. You must’ve known things with Mark would be…” An exercise in masochism? “Would be tougher than with anyone else.”

That strange bitter laugh again. Dustin wonders where the fuck Chris has disappeared to. There’s no way he’s gonna be able to carry Eduardo all the way back to Eliot on his own.

“You think,” Eduardo says as he stumbles away from the wall and closer to Dustin. “You think,” he’s whispering now, “that this is a fucking _choice_? That anyone would willingly sign up for _this_?”

No, he doesn’t suppose it is. But he’s never really been in love so he doubts he’s in a position to… oh, _fuck_. This whole mess _is_ turning him into a girl, after all.

Chris chooses that moment to show up, thank God. Dustin gestures to him and he seems to understand.

“Wardo, c’mon, time to go home,” Chris says, poking Eduardo’s side.

Together they make the trip back to Eliot with relative ease. When they’re safely depositing Eduardo in his room, Dustin blurts out, “It won’t last, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Eduardo smiles the saddest fucking smile Dustin’s ever seen in his miserable life. “Mark will screw up sooner or later, she’ll get fed up with him being an asshole.”

Dustin snorts, because it’s true enough. He’s not sure what possesses him to ask, “But with you there’s nothing -- there’s no way he can screw up badly enough that you won’t forgive him, is there?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.” Eduardo sighs. “I just don’t know,” he whispers and, with one last half-smile, disappears into the darkness of his room.

 

:::

 

"Did you know there are more people with genius IQ’s living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?"

Erica decides to take a deep breath instead of a sip of beer and sets the glass down on the sticky table, focusing on the shiny rings of condensation and probably years-old grease on the wooden surface. Okay. She'll bite. "That can’t possibly be true."

 

_end_


End file.
